It is old and well known in the art of metal working to cold work metals and alloys. It is known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,209,453 to shape a blank in a die prior to finish machining. It is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,045,644 to apply axial pressure on a sintered electrode blank to pressure flow the blank radially to reorientate the grain structure.
It would be highly desirable if one could control mechanical properties of powder metals in a predictable manner so as to attain, for example, a powder metal product having predetermined variable hardness along its entire length or along only a portion of its length. The present invention is directed to attaining that goal.